Traders

[CastIronFabric]

ok, with much reluctance I am just going to say it.

I very much like the concept of traders but I do not like how its being implement and in addition to that I think the most recent traders makes it even more problematic rather than less so.

anyway, mods and creative mode fixes it for me but I just want to say this.

[Chrondeath]

I don't think you got to the point where you actually explain what it is you're complaining about.  What is it that you don't like about the existing traders?

[CastIronFabric]

14 minutes ago, Chrondeath said:

I don't think you got to the point where you actually explain what it is you're complaining about.  What is it that you don't like about the existing traders?

fair enough my intent was to create a thread about the subject generally while at the same time trying to not make it too much about my opinion specifically and not engage too much. 

That said:

1. I do not like the distances between but I also do not have a solution to that issue specifically on purpose because I do not want the conversation to thread to far into my views.

2. I think its more problematic now because some of them are even harder to find and they now have no use outside of just trading (aka can not use the bed nor storage) and I personally do not like ladders while I am traveling at great haste but need to mark a trader that I see.

Do you like the current trading setup?

[Rainbow Fresh]

I do like the current traders. Less common might be nice, if there was some way in turn to specifically locate X type of trader (took me to the second year to find an artisan/luxuries trader to buy my diamonds). But their new houses are much cooler and much more believably immersive compared to the same copy-pasta human in the same copy-pasta cart 100 blocks over.

[CastIronFabric]

Just now, Rainbow Fresh said:

I do like the current traders. Less common might be nice, if there was some way in turn to specifically locate X type of trader (took me to the second year to find an artisan/luxuries trader to buy my diamonds). But their new houses are much cooler and much more believably immersive compared to the same copy-pasta human in the same copy-pasta cart 100 blocks over.

I am curious, do you use traders much? I mean lets say a trader wants to buy a bunch of flax bread and you need some gears, do you run 1k+ blocks to do that?

[Rainbow Fresh]

Just now, CastIronFabric said:

I am curious, do you use traders much? I mean lets say a trader wants to buy a bunch of flax bread and you need some gears, do you run 1k+ blocks to do that?

Nope. Back in 1.21 I used a mod that culls 3/4 of their useless circle-trading inventory so they only buy and sell stuff actually relevant to their job and only things the player can reasonably obtain without trading (following the logic of "If I can buy it from another trader, so can you. I ain't Amazon"). I just like seeing some life in the world, with Better Ruins they have a few more quests/locations and I can occasionally stumble upon a good deal on my travels to either lighten my inventory or my purse.

[CastIronFabric]

1 minute ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

Nope. Back in 1.21 I used a mod that culls 3/4 of their useless circle-trading inventory so they only buy and sell stuff actually relevant to their job and only things the player can reasonably obtain without trading (following the logic of "If I can buy it from another trader, so can you. I ain't Amazon"). I just like seeing some life in the world, with Better Ruins they have a few more quests/locations and I can occasionally stumble upon a good deal on my travels to either lighten my inventory or my purse.

you think they should be farther apart? (side note:  I know I said in a reply that I didnt want to engage much but it appears I am, oh well sometimes I change my mind )

[Rainbow Fresh]

19 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

you think they should be farther apart? (side note:  I know I said in a reply that I didnt want to engage much but it appears I am, oh well sometimes I change my mind )

A bit, yeah. Granted those are in 1.21 territory so I can't say if 1.22 adjusted this already, but there is on basically everywhere

And I constantly find more coming back at night.

Edited Wednesday at 06:34 PM by Rainbow Fresh

[Chrondeath]

16 minutes ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

Nope. Back in 1.21 I used a mod that culls 3/4 of their useless circle-trading inventory so they only buy and sell stuff actually relevant to their job and only things the player can reasonably obtain without trading (following the logic of "If I can buy it from another trader, so can you. I ain't Amazon").

The old-school Privateer player in me kind of likes the idea of being able to make a profit by traveling between points, buying the things that one location produces and selling them to a different location that needs them.  I'm not sure the traders are 100% set up to make that profitable, though, and it's kind of a superfluous activity to the rest of the game. 

I wish there was a little more...enforced variety in traders, like, prevent two "adjacent" (per the trader spawning grid pattern) traders from being the same type.  I've found a lot fewer traders in 1.22, not sure if replacing the carts with compounds has made the spawning more likely to fail. 

Thematically it definitely felt like the traders in carts were supposed to be (at least cosplaying as) mobile; moving to compounds makes them more match what they actually are but mobility is kind of what I wish they had.  Wouldn't actually make a lot of sense without larger settlements for them to move between though.

[Aranyani]

Trader Camps is a great mod if you're willing to make a new world or travel to new territory. It will still generate the single vanilla traders but you'll also find wagon camps of 2-3 traders together, usually in the old wagons. There's even the occasional abandoned wagon camp. You can sometimes find all three traders milling about around a campfire which is cool. Overall I think much more interesting and immersive than single traders evenly spread out across the landscape. Love the mod, wouldn't be surprised if something like it made its way into vanilla.

[Maelstrom]

2 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

you think they should be farther apart? (side note:  I know I said in a reply that I didnt want to engage much but it appears I am, oh well sometimes I change my mind )

One thing the devs like to "encourage" is getting out and seeing the world, aka exploring.

[CastIronFabric]

57 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

One thing the devs like to "encourage" is getting out and seeing the world, aka exploring.

I am curious, are you interested in exploring 2000+ blocks to find a clothing trader?

Edited Wednesday at 09:15 PM by CastIronFabric

[CastIronFabric]

2 hours ago, Chrondeath said:

The old-school Privateer player in me kind of likes the idea of being able to make a profit by traveling between points, buying the things that one location produces and selling them to a different location that needs them.  I'm not sure the traders are 100% set up to make that profitable, though, and it's kind of a superfluous activity to the rest of the game. 

I wish there was a little more...enforced variety in traders, like, prevent two "adjacent" (per the trader spawning grid pattern) traders from being the same type.  I've found a lot fewer traders in 1.22, not sure if replacing the carts with compounds has made the spawning more likely to fail. 

Thematically it definitely felt like the traders in carts were supposed to be (at least cosplaying as) mobile; moving to compounds makes them more match what they actually are but mobility is kind of what I wish they had.  Wouldn't actually make a lot of sense without larger settlements for them to move between though.

well for me personally the perfect setup already exists as a mod. 

You find the trader, you capture said trader like the animal cages, you bring trader back to some location that you have built for traders. Its fair to say I play differently.

 

[Maelstrom]

41 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

I am curious, are you interested in exploring 2000+ blocks to find a clothing trader?

Not a clothing trader.  But an artisan trader?  yes, especially if I have a good supply of cinnabar. 

Heck I've hiked over 3,000 blocks for bees, bauxite and translocator that took me to a perfect winter farmland.  Some of those in the same world and the items in almost opposite directions.

[dakko]

2 hours ago, Aranyani said:

Love the mod, wouldn't be surprised if something like it made its way into vanilla.

Vanilla already has trader camps. They don't happen very often, but they are there.

[CastIronFabric]

56 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

Not a clothing trader.  But an artisan trader?  yes, especially if I have a good supply of cinnabar. 

Heck I've hiked over 3,000 blocks for bees, bauxite and translocator that took me to a perfect winter farmland.  Some of those in the same world and the items in almost opposite directions.

I need to be more specific so I will clarify as a follow up.

Do you think traveling 3000 blocks to trade for cinnabar with a trader who may or may not actually have the cinnabar you need is an improved trading experience over something that could be done differently? Or to say 'if you were to design the trading system would you design it similar in that specific respect?

also, I will try to leave it alone but I do not think grouping traveling to get bees into the same grouping as traveling to get cinnabar is really a fair grouping.

I have been known to travel 10,000 blocks to get Chalk, would I do the same to trade with a trader for cinnabar which said trader may or may not have? likely not, likely not a good compare.

 

Edited Wednesday at 10:55 PM by CastIronFabric

[Maelstrom]

I've travelled about 1,500 blocks round trip to hopefully buy cracked vessels from a treasure hunter to hopefully sell them to a commodities trader.  So yeh, I don't have a problem with the current design.

I'll also add the traders in VS beat the holy snot out the villager trading in TOBG.  THAT is truly broken.

Edited Wednesday at 11:53 PM by Maelstrom

[CastIronFabric]

9 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

I've travelled about 1,500 blocks round trip to hopefully buy cracked vessels from a treasure hunter to hopefully sell them to a commodities trader.  So yeh, I don't have a problem with the current design.

I'll also add the traders in VS beat the holy snot out the villager trading in TOBG.  THAT is truly broken.

ok, so to be clear if you were in charge of designing the trading system you would leave that part as is.

also, it would be helpful for me anyway if you could quote reply if that is not too much trouble.

Thanks for your input.

 

[Rainbow Fresh]

9 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

well for me personally the perfect setup already exists as a mod. 

You find the trader, you capture said trader like the animal cages, you bring trader back to some location that you have built for traders. Its fair to say I play differently.

 

That doesn't even require a mod, there is a whole other game for that. Cause that's just a notable part of what makes Minecraft's trading to unbalanced. I may be the proud inventor of a compact, Minecart-automated villager trading hall over there but I am also the first one to openly admit that villager trading killed the concept of progression in that game entirely. In Vintage story, you don't have control over other people's life. You may find a trader out somewhere, it may be the type of trader who could sell/buy the goods you want and they may or may not actually have that in stock. It fits into the theme of the world, it makes sense and it isn't exploitable because you cannot control it. You cannot reroll a trader in an endless cycle of re-employment to get the trades you want, you cannot forcibly feed him to the monster to then act as hero in shining armor to scam every last cent out of them and you cannot conveniently relocate all traders you ever need right to your doorstep. Of all the things that could be improved or changed about the current trader system, the ability to control them is one thing that should never become a thing.

6 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

ok, so to be clear if you were in charge of designing the trading system

If we approach this topic from an angle of "trading is to be freshly invented for the game and you get to design it" - then sure, there could be more and different things to it. I would certainly agree with suggestions made in the past that it would be very neat to have actual dynamics in a living world. Those trader carts? Better be moving. Some sort of rudamentery trade network with bigger hubs and traders moving inbetween. Some sort of persistence where positive trading boosts the economy so that more traders travel an area and or have better wares. Of course I am aware that the devs are clearly against building your own society as they said there will be no proper settlement building, which limits the degree to which traders can be fleshed out without being too overbearing as a mechanic, but having some sort of life in this world would certainly be nice.

[CastIronFabric]

5 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

 

If we approach this topic from an angle of "trading is to be freshly invented for the game and you get to design it" - then sure, there could be more and different things to it. I would certainly agree with suggestions made in the past that it would be very neat to have actual dynamics in a living world. Those trader carts? Better be moving. Some sort of rudamentery trade network with bigger hubs and traders moving inbetween. Some sort of persistence where positive trading boosts the economy so that more traders travel an area and or have better wares. Of course I am aware that the devs are clearly against building your own society as they said there will be no proper settlement building, which limits the degree to which traders can be fleshed out without being too overbearing as a mechanic, but having some sort of life in this world would certainly be nice.

I do not know that the developers are  'against building your own society', I would like to see your reference to that, I find that claim interesting.

Lets say I want to buy a Temporal Gear to fix a Translocator. So I find a trader 5000 blocks away that wants to buy something I can make, but at the moment the trader does not want to buy anything I can make but the trader will be getting new supplies in three days. So I run 5000 blocks back home and do other things for a few days like more food (it was a long run). Then three days later, I travel 5000 blocks again to see what he now wants to buy, I find some things he wants to buy so I travel 5000 blocks back home to make said items, then 5000 blocks again to sell it. So for about 6 gears or so, I have traveled a total of 25,000 blocks. 

I personally do not find that to be a good system, do you?

 

What if instead the list of items that the trader buys and sells is larger and fairly consistent? That would at least reduce the number of times one would travel 25,000 blocks to make 6-10 gears max.

 

Now regarding part of your Minecraft comment let me ask you:

Are you suggesting to me that instead of using a mod to change the trading experience I should instead play minecraft?

Keep in mind from what I understand the developer explicitly created this game for mods to be used often, but you are suggesting I should play minecraft instead of modding the game to change the traders?

Edited 22 hours ago by CastIronFabric

[Maelstrom]

9 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

I find some things he wants to buy so I travel 5000 blocks back home to make said items

The smart player brings bronze ingots, forge, anvil, etc to craft said items at the trader's site.  They also would leave the forge w/ wooden tongs and various other low cost items at said trader location to reduce the stuff one has to lug there.   Maybe even leave a copper anvil and a hammer so nothing has to be brought unless restocking charcoal or ingots.

The big money is in buying selected items from one trader and selling to a different trader.  The only thing I'd really change right now is to make sure that there are things to be both bought and sold at similar prices; some expensive items and some cheap ones based on how easy it is for the player to obtain said items.   Items that the player cannot obtain in bulk would be more expensive, like cracked vessels and wolf pups.  I tend to end up with a treasure hunter that has obscene amounts of gears because I buy their cracked vessels but don't have anything worth selling them (except the occassional wolf pup when that one pops up).  Meanwhile the commodities trader is constantly broke because there is little I find worth buying from him, and what I do buy from him is the lower price things which doesn't help him with purchasing more of my cracked vessels.

VS traders are not there to help with progression unlike TOBG where villagers can be used to completely skip progression altogether.  They are flavor to the game to be an indication of the post-apocalypse world we find when we join the game.

[CastIronFabric]

4 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

The smart player brings bronze ingots, forge, anvil, etc to craft said items at the trader's site.  They also would leave the forge w/ wooden tongs and various other low cost items at said trader location to reduce the stuff one has to lug there.   Maybe even leave a copper anvil and a hammer so nothing has to be brought unless restocking charcoal or ingots.

The big money is in buying selected items from one trader and selling to a different trader.  The only thing I'd really change right now is to make sure that there are things to be both bought and sold at similar prices; some expensive items and some cheap ones based on how easy it is for the player to obtain said items.   Items that the player cannot obtain in bulk would be more expensive, like cracked vessels and wolf pups.  I tend to end up with a treasure hunter that has obscene amounts of gears because I buy their cracked vessels but don't have anything worth selling them (except the occassional wolf pup when that one pops up).  Meanwhile the commodities trader is constantly broke because there is little I find worth buying from him, and what I do buy from him is the lower price things which doesn't help him with purchasing more of my cracked vessels.

VS traders are not there to help with progression unlike TOBG where villagers can be used to completely skip progression altogether.  They are flavor to the game to be an indication of the post-apocalypse world we find when we join the game.

so perhaps the intent is actually to encourage the players to make mini bases, near traders which is pretty cool actually.

Do you bring a forge, tongs, coal etc to your traders to make things or do you build a base close by for that so that you can make 6 gears or so once a month when you get time?

as I side note I do not really know what TOBG is but now that I think on it I think you mean minecraft. For a point of reference, I have never played minecraft nor have any desire to.

Edited 21 hours ago by CastIronFabric

[Rainbow Fresh]

43 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

I do not know that the developers are  'against building your own society', I would like to see your reference to that, I find that claim interesting.

It appears I may have mixed some thing into a single statement, but I have atleast found the mention of an official interview with the devs wherein Minecraft-style trading behavior was put as a no-go.

 

45 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

Lets say I want to buy a Temporal Gear to fix a Translocator. So I find a trader 5000 blocks away that wants to buy something I can make, but at the moment the trader does not want to buy anything I can make but the trader will be getting new supplies in three days. So I run 5000 blocks back home and do other things for a few days like more food (it was a long run). Then three days later, I travel 5000 blocks again to see what he now wants to buy, I find some things he wants to buy so I travel 5000 blocks back home to make said items, then 5000 blocks again to sell it. So for about 6 gears or so, I have traveled a total of 25,000 blocks. 

I personally do not find that to be a good system, do you?

Try seeing it that way: You go on an adventure 5000 blocks out. You come across a luxuries trader; the first one you found in your world. At home you have 1 rough diamond or two you are sitting on because you they sound valuable (they are diamonds, after all) but utterly useless outside of the small handbook note that Luxuries and Artisan traders buy them. The trader currently, however, doesn't buy (your potential of) diamond. You check to see he changes inventory stock in 3 days. You plop down a marker for the trader with the date, and move along on your journey. Eventually you come home, do your thing, the 3+ days pass - maybe 30 days pass, who knows. You pack for another expedition in the direction of the trader and deliberately make stop to check if he now has better deals.

Alternatively, you maybe wander around with your money always on you on expeditions, so you randomly stumble across a... furniture trader, see "Ooh, fancy painting I have not yet obtained" and buy it.

To me, that does sound like a better experience (better as in "makes sense, immersive and balanced", not purely "convenient") than having 20 traders of every type buried in a hole at home that you occasionally check on for trades as if you were feeding your chickens. And even chickens need sunlight. And yes, the current trader system is not deliberately designed for fun and enganging "I roleplay as a trader myself" type of gameplay, as constantly running around thousands of blocks between traders to check their Maybe Inventory is not a great time. But I have played Elite Dangerous before, so I am used to trading being tediously boring and I have also survived about 2 in-game years without the need for trading at all. Could have looked for lime on traders when I was desperately lacking it? Maybe. Did I just run around exploring and find Borax instead? Yes.

52 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

Now regarding part of your Minecraft comment let me ask you:

Are you suggesting to me that instead of using a mod to change the trading experience I should instead play minecraft?

Keep in mind from what I understand the developer explicitly created this game for mods to be used often, but you are suggesting I should play minecraft instead of modding the game to change the traders?

The game is very much intended to be modded and their being a million mods for everything is a great part in what makes Vintage Story fun, no matter your playstyle. What I was hinting at here is the fact that this kind of behavior of "traders suck, so I'll immediately install a mod that makes them work like in Minecraft" is the reason why so many heated debates exist around here whose primary argument is "This isn't Minecraft, this feature would make it like Minecraft". Minecraft is a nice game, I have played it for over a decade. And I can safely say that Elytra and Villager trading are the two worst balanced aspects of that game. Because no matter how boring or bad trader in VS might be right now, atleast they don't replace 95% of the entire game. So I'd very much rather run 25000 blocks for 6-10 gears instead of building a trading hub at home, buy the best Steel armor through repeated exploitative trading, then complain there is not much content to the game.

[CastIronFabric]

18 minutes ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

It appears I may have mixed some thing into a single statement, but I have atleast found the mention of an official interview with the devs wherein Minecraft-style trading behavior was put as a no-go.

 

Try seeing it that way: You go on an adventure 5000 blocks out. You come across a luxuries trader; the first one you found in your world. At home you have 1 rough diamond or two you are sitting on because you they sound valuable (they are diamonds, after all) but utterly useless outside of the small handbook note that Luxuries and Artisan traders buy them. The trader currently, however, doesn't buy (your potential of) diamond. You check to see he changes inventory stock in 3 days. You plop down a marker for the trader with the date, and move along on your journey. Eventually you come home, do your thing, the 3+ days pass - maybe 30 days pass, who knows. You pack for another expedition in the direction of the trader and deliberately make stop to check if he now has better deals.

Alternatively, you maybe wander around with your money always on you on expeditions, so you randomly stumble across a... furniture trader, see "Ooh, fancy painting I have not yet obtained" and buy it.

To me, that does sound like a better experience (better as in "makes sense, immersive and balanced", not purely "convenient") than having 20 traders of every type buried in a hole at home that you occasionally check on for trades as if you were feeding your chickens. And even chickens need sunlight. And yes, the current trader system is not deliberately designed for fun and enganging "I roleplay as a trader myself" type of gameplay, as constantly running around thousands of blocks between traders to check their Maybe Inventory is not a great time. But I have played Elite Dangerous before, so I am used to trading being tediously boring and I have also survived about 2 in-game years without the need for trading at all. Could have looked for lime on traders when I was desperately lacking it? Maybe. Did I just run around exploring and find Borax instead? Yes.

The game is very much intended to be modded and their being a million mods for everything is a great part in what makes Vintage Story fun, no matter your playstyle. What I was hinting at here is the fact that this kind of behavior of "traders suck, so I'll immediately install a mod that makes them work like in Minecraft" is the reason why so many heated debates exist around here whose primary argument is "This isn't Minecraft, this feature would make it like Minecraft". Minecraft is a nice game, I have played it for over a decade. And I can safely say that Elytra and Villager trading are the two worst balanced aspects of that game. Because no matter how boring or bad trader in VS might be right now, atleast they don't replace 95% of the entire game. So I'd very much rather run 25000 blocks for 6-10 gears instead of building a trading hub at home, buy the best Steel armor through repeated exploitative trading, then complain there is not much content to the game.

1. People are often times referring to minecraft in responses on this subject. I have never played minecraft and I have no desire to and do not have any point of reference on that subject. So there is likely a lack of understanding on those comments on my part.

2. when you are exploring and you run into a trader, I would think the chances that you recall what you have back at your base which you can run back to so that you can make 4 or 5 gears is pretty small. In fact even the chances that you are going to recall that the trader wanted that item and which trader it was and how much and what quality by the time you finish going where you were already going and back is pretty slim. Unless of course, you write it down. Do you write down all that stuff when you run into a trader? I want to encourage everyone to state what they actually do instead of what one might do in theory if that makes sense becasue that gives a more tactile experience that you personally have with the trading system rather than one that is theoretical 

3. So to be clear, in your personal experience with interacting with traders you find the system that is currently in place to be really solid and good. Not in theory but your actual real life interaction with the trading system. If so, fair enough, point made. I however do not like the system at all and almost never interact with it other than to get temporal gears.

4. I think I need to make a point about all the comments regarding 'how the game is indented to be played'. From my understanding the developer themselves where originally modders, they modded Minecraft to make it different. So from the very start they seem to be ok with changing games. Moreover, unless I am mistaken one of the core principles of this game is that it encourages modding which is by default a change of the game. So its a bit circular to say the game should not change because it might go against the spirit of the game when the game is built from the ground up to be changed. This is a side note to reflect on. In fact, one of the main reasons WHY this game is my favorite game ever is not because I like the default settings but because its open to changing the default game play. I personally actually do not like the default settings.

 

 

Edited 21 hours ago by CastIronFabric

[Rainbow Fresh]

5 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

when you are exploring and you run into a trader, I would think the chances that you recall what you have back at your base which you can run back to so that you can make 4 or 5 gears is pretty small. In fact even the chances that you are going to recall that the trader wanted that item and which trader it was and how much and what quality by the time you finish going where you were already going and back is pretty slim. Unless of course, you write it down. Do you write down all that stuff when you run into a trader?

I have marked every single trader I have ever come across in my world with a waypoint on the map naming their profession. For specifically artisan and luxuries traders I am also writing the date of their next restock into the waypoint title. Because I still have 1 poor potential diamond, one poor potential emerald and 2 poor potential peridots at home which are virtually useless aside from selling them, and those two are the (seemingly rare) trader types potentially buying them. If I had the materials to make a book or some other mod for journal keeping installed, I would write down more details. Or if there just was an actually good, performant, realistic mapping mod that allows free-style writing on the map aswell. Every little detail I have at home I don't need to remember, because most things the traders buy are predictable; a random assortment of tools from various metals, clothing and food. As I had screenshotted above there are plenty traders everywhere so if I ever have the need to buy or sell something specific that isn't rare luxuries, I can go on a single 5000 block trip around about 10 traders. I am also playing with Combat Overhaul's "Quivers and Sheats" mod, meaning I always run around with a knife sheath with gear pouch giving me a free inventory slot to always have all my gears on me should I randomly come across a new trader and see a fancy painting or halite.

For this specific playstyle that doesn't see trading a primary part of progression I think the current system is good enough. It could be cooler, for sure, but it works well right now. You can cut some corners with traders selling you stuff, you can surely optimize capitalist tendencies as Maelstrom pointed out but ultimately these traders do not break balance because they are not OP or exploitable and they do not allow you to obtain 90% of all progression items. I also play with better ruins which, as I mentioned, adds a few more "story" locations for which these traders give you quests. The required quest item I also write down in the waypoint's name.